Julebukk
by Xerogen
Summary: Sometimes, the stakes are too high and friends are lost. Sometimes the holidays are shadowed with too much grief to bring any form of joy at all, and sometimes they just serve as a painful reminder of what is missing. But sometimes they're not. Sometimes, there really are Christmas miracles.


_**Author's Note: **I wrote this as a Christmas gift to my tumblr followers in December; believe it or not, I can actually write semi-happy things after all._

_It's a little ambiguous as to what universe this takes place in—sort of a cross between the MCU with a dash of 616—but it's not that important to the story. Some of the references are made-up, but if you follow the comics you might catch a couple things._

* * *

It's been a long year, with too many lost friends and allies. Out of the rather large party Tony had planned, only a handful of people ended up coming, and only because the Avengers are trying to force enough Christmas cheer to keep up a good public face—nobody likes superheroes who shutter themselves in during the holiday season. There was a pretty big benefit dinner a couple nights ago to raise money for a local children's hospital (Pepper had vehemently told Tony that, no, throwing cash at things isn't the same in the eyes of the media), but it had seemed even more dreary than the company crap he had to deal with on a regular basis. Manhattan be damned if Tony's going to let all the shit that's happened ruin his Christmas, though.

He has half a mind to fly everyone down to Malibu, or out to Dubai or something, but Christmas Eve finds the team on the bottom floor of the tower penthouse while snow dusts the windowsill. Irving Berlin may have grown up in the city, but he must have been thinking of Russia when he wrote White Christmas. People from further south don't seem to realize that New York doesn't automatically equal snow on Christmas day; this is, what, the third time in the past twenty years? There's something about holiday lights glinting off icicles that makes this time of year nostalgic.

The main Christmas tree was a bit of a joint effort, and it shows. The assassins took over light duties through a vaguely haphazard approach, and Bruce and Steve went a somewhat traditional route with carefully-placed ribbon and garland before hanging tasteful decorations. Tony ran circles around them throwing tinsel at the branches and whoever was in the way (Bruce ended up with a new fashion of sorts, considering how much more ended up on him than the tree). The ornaments are a confused mess of heirlooms, gifts, and glass balls filled with programmed LEDs that he made in the workshop one night during a funeral-induced drinking spree. They're a little weird (and a few are lopsided), but hey. He tried. The overall effect is a little weird, since nothing quite matches, but it suits them; the Avengers are pieces from completely different puzzles forced together by some sadistic child, and there are gaps where things don't quite fit.

Colored icicle lights follow the joints between the walls and ceiling, twinkling idly in the background while the team toasts the lost with sparkling wine.

_To Luke, and Emma, and Gilbert, and Bobbi; to Xavier, and the mutants he spent his life protecting. To the fallen whose identities their masks still guard, and to all the unknown soldiers. To the heroes, the villains, the undecided, and the civilians. To the Earth, and to every other godforsaken planet out there that's still fighting._

Tony takes a sip of the gold liquid and raises his glass again. "To Bruce, for realizing that inner demons are only demons if you let them be."

With a slight blush, Bruce turns and passes the toast on. "To Clint, for not giving in to grief."

"Thanks, buddy," Clint says with a nod. "If we're gonna stand around acting fancy, then to Steve. 'Cause he lost a hell of a lot more than me."

Steve shakes his head. "You can't quantify things like that, this year's been shit for all of us. To Natasha, for reminding us of why we're all here and not letting us back down when things get tough."

"Great," Natasha sighs and rolls her eyes. "I'm stuck with Stark. To him, for a comfy couch and good booze."

Tony leans across the coffee to clink his glass against hers, a cocky smile settling across his features. "It's what I do best."

Sometime around seven, Thor shows up with fresh meat from Asgard's winter hunt and an armful of gifts that Clint takes to the tree while Bruce goes to help Thor cook. Soon the floor is filled with the sweet, slightly tangy scent of whatever Asgardian creature the gods hunt this time of year, and it's mouth-watering.

"Remember when Christmas was this magical time, and you were too excited the night before to go to sleep because Santa was coming to bring you awesome shit?" Clint asks once they've all sat down to eat, his voice wistful.

"It was one of the only parts of the year that my entire family was together at once," reminisces Tony, "and mom would spend hours making these fancy filled chocolates. She wouldn't let dad drink, either, and one year I think he even smiled."

"We made gingerbread men, and all the kids on our block would get together and decorate them. The girls would pick their favorites and whoever won got to put the star on top of the tree."

"You ever win, Cap?"

Steve grins and winks. "Three years in a row."

"Me and Barney tried to make gingerbread cookies with a couple of the carnies one year. Ended badly, but it was fun."

"Gingerbread?" Thor questions after finishing his bite of stuffing.

"Yeah, think those cookie things you brought that one time but shaped like people and a little more Christmassy."

"Oh my god, we so need to make gingerbread."

Natasha shakes her head with a long-suffering sigh. "Stark, don't you think there's been enough tragedy? We don't need to add your kitchen to the list."

"Are you kidding me? It's gonna be awesome! We're making gingerbread men, it's official."

And that's pretty much how the team ended up covered in flour, singing Christmas carols at each other, and almost setting the tower on fire.

Halfway through mixing everything together they get distracted by a sudden flurry outside. Under the new blanket of snow, the sharp edges of the city are softened and it almost looks like someone's taken an eraser to all the dirt and grime that usually crusts street corners.

"Aww, cookie…" Clint sighs. Somehow in that break they forget where they were in their work, and end up leaving out the egg from the batter by mistake. They don't realize until the cookies are in the oven and Natasha finds the carton pushed to the side by the fruit bowl, by which point it's too late, so there's nothing they can do about it. Without a binder the treats are dry and dusty in their mouths, but it's the thought that counts, Bruce says.

Clint manages to add more sugar to the frosting than it really needs, so combined, the cookies are a bit of a mess. They have a good time decorating them to look like caricatures of each other, though. The time the team spends in the kitchen almost seems like a family moment while the warm, sweet oven air wafts around them as they work.

Tony's going to be brushing flour and sugar off the counter for the next year, but this might be the first time they've all been smiling since they got trapped between SHIELD and the X-Men. Thor lights the fireplace for them while Tony digs out old blankets from a closet, and the team sits on the floor in a circle in front of it and talks late into the night by the light of the dancing yellow glow with the plate of cookies between them.

Jarvis wakes Tony the next morning with a slightly concerning message.

"Sir, I'm afraid there's been an anomaly."

"Wha' the hell d'ya mean anomaly?" he asks sleepily, head under his pillow and not wanting to leave the warm cocoon of blankets he's gotten tangled in during the night.

"It would appear as though the video surveillance last night was tampered with—there are images of someone being present, but no other record of such an event. Heat sensors return nothing, and the defense mechanisms remain securely in place."

He groans, not wanting to deal with this shit on Christmas fucking morning, and tells Jarvis to pull up a shot of whoever the fuck it was. Ten bucks says it's not Santa Claus bringing goodies for the good little supergirls and boys…

Except, well, not _Santa,_ exactly. More like Kris Kringle from Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town. -Ish. Long hair hangs down his back in a ponytail like a cascade of flame over the white furs draped across his shoulders. He's thin, but the sort that comes with long hours of hard work rather than any sort of frailty.

"What'd he do? My tower still in one piece? And why the everliving fuck didn't you tell me when he got in?"

"It would seem my systems were compromised, sir; I was blind to the issue until this morning. As for what he did, perhaps I may suggest you go look for yourself?"

"No, I shan't, it's Christmas," Tony mutters into his blankets before he relents and trudges to the closet.

"Holy fucking shit, guys, you have to get up here!" Tony yells through the comms to wake them up.

Needless to say, the team isn't terribly thrilled when they stumble out of the elevator sporting varying interpretations of pyjamas and bedhead. It takes almost ten minutes for Tony to convince them that, no, he's not screwing with them and he didn't alter the footage or records, but finally they give in and head to the tree.

Underneath are six neatly-wrapped presents, with complicated hand-tied bows on top that look like they could have come out of a picture book. Each has one of their names written in an elegant calligraphy that Tony's only seen on seriously fancy hand-lettered invites, but somehow it fits the picture. The cookies have been picked over, too, and the ones of Steve and Tony are mysteriously missing.

Clint's the first to have his (rather large and unwieldy) gift open, and stares at what he finds with a flood of emotions. He pulls the last few sheets of red tissue paper out from the box with tears in his eyes. "I– I thought it had burned in the fire," he whispers, trailing his fingers over the bow Bobbi had made for him back before everything went to hell. Even after their divorce they'd been on decent terms, and her death had hit him hard.

The rest of their presents serve to prove that it wasn't Tony who'd done it, or any of them for that matter. Each gift is something deeply meaningful which they've never asked for aloud, and that would have been hard (if not impossible) to obtain. Well, Tony first finds a potato under the tree addressed to him, but afterwards Natasha hands him a small box that was hiding behind hers with his mother's necklace in it. The one she was wearing when the plane went down and they never found. Thor's is even some momento he'd lost as a child on Asgard.

They sit in dumbfounded awe for a good while before Clint speaks up.

"So I know Santa isn't real, but… are we sure Santa's not real?"

Loki sits, perched on the balcony railing, with the flakes of snow caught in his hair tossing rainbows of light too small for the human eye to catch onto his garnet cloak. Shielded from the view of the tower's inhabitants, he watches them with just the barest hint of a smile as he licks slightly-too-sweet red and blue icing off his fingers.


End file.
